remedial goodness for Chelish archdukes
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Well, that much is a relief, even if he's not going to like the answer to the next question. "What would it mean for the conditions to be conscionable?"

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"In Lastwall, or anywhere the Church supervises prisoners, prisoners may not be lied to by an authority, tortured, humiliated, or threatened. ...explaining criminal punishments does not count there as 'threatened'. it is fine to say 'if you kill someone you will be executed', but you can't threaten anyone outside of describing the punishments that can be issued judicially or by discretion and under what circumstances they'll be issued, and punishments that cause lasting injury or death have to be issued judicially. You may not withhold any of food, drink, comfortable temperatures, medical attention, appropriate clothing and bedding, or lighting, except where those are genuinely scarce and being similarly rationed outside of custody. Food served to prisoners should be adequate to maintain them in good health. You have to protect prisoners from crimes committed against their persons and have an avenue for them to report such crimes. They may attend religious services, or refuse to attend them. They should not be restrained beyond the degree required for security."

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"I see." He chews on this. 

"Most slaves captured in the mountains are sold to individual owners. Here, they use them to work the fields, but every year we capture more than Kantaria has need for. The rest are sent south, and even if we could enforce conscionable treatment in Kantaria or in all of Menador - and I'm not at all sure we could, or have the authority to even if it would work - there's certainly no way for me to enforce it in the rest of Cheliax."

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"What would happen, concretely, to the orcs captured in the mountains, if slavery was banned?"

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"We'd kill them. For a while. Then it would get harder to kill them, because - Kantaria itself is profitable, most years, but the marches to the north don't bring in enough in taxes to pay, effectively, for their own defense. Nor do most in Menador."

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"Okay. I think that enslaving and selling the orcs is Evil but am reluctant to recommend that switch with that context."

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"I think ultimately the Queen is going to have to decide if she wants slavery in her country and on what terms if so, it doesn't seem like a good idea to try to ask individual lords to bring about an end to it or major reform to it in their territory without her buy-in. It is Evil, though, almost certainly as actually practiced and probably with close to the best possible implementation. 

Are children born to enslaved orcs slaves?"

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"Goes by the mother, right now. Enslaved mother, yes. Free mother, no, regardless of the father."

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"If that wasn't the rule, would people just kill slaves' children?"

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"Children being born into slavery is more of an evil than prisoners of war being captured for it."

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"Ideally you probably want a legal structure that keeps the children with their parents - and doesn't permit breaking up the parents' marriage - but I imagine that might be outside your authority. It would be the closest to doing right by the people involved, though."

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"I don't think I'm permitted to pass laws about slavery. And if I were, I wouldn't do it now, without knowing what the Queen plans to change. The household itself has slaves, of course, even if they're not most of the ones we produce. I suppose the halflings are unrelated to all of this, and could probably be freed, now that that's legal."

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"I think freeing this household's slaves would be a good thing to do."

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He looks a bit like he wants to say something, but he doesn't, quite.

"Of course. I can have some manumission papers drawn up."

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"Thank you. If there are complicated cases where it will make things worse we can of course try to iron those out, and it'll be good for understanding what kinds of complicated cases there are, but - I do think mostly it's better to avoid slavery wherever it can possibly be avoided."

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"I'm not immediately certain what it will mean for the families where one parent is enslaved and the other is free, or for the slaves who were, in fact, captured in the mountains. But there are some we can easily free, and the others are no excuse for them. What was it you said, exactly? That good should be pursued first where it is easiest to obtain?"

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"Yes. The more complicated and more theologically accurate version would be that good should usually be pursued wherever a given amount of effort will produce the most good but that adds more complication without adding more clarity for most people."

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"Well. We can free the halflings easily enough. Converting the fields deserves more thought, and - I'm not sure I'm certain exactly what you advise we do with the captures."

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"In the cases where there is a free person who has children by an enslaved person, are those - situations being conceptualized as marriage? Or as... rape is one of the things that's illegal, right?"

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It had actually not occurred to him at all that any instances of sleeping with slaves might be an instance of the thing the Queen had intended him to be policing, when she made a royal decree banning it. Rape is - was - definitionally, the crime of forcing oneself on a person free to refuse. A slave isn't, and in the usual case effectively can't, so it's not even really clear what they would be policing - 

"I had not understood that decree to include any circumstances where one party was enslaved. Are you confident it's meant to?"

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"I can't speak to the Queen's intent but in Lastwall having sex with a prisoner or a slave would be considered rape, as they are in no position to refuse. Obviously there would be some unusual circumstances - say that a couple was married and then one were enslaved for debt, which doesn't happen in Lastwall but does some places, I wouldn't say that dissolves the marriage - but a typical case, where someone purchases a slave and then has sex with them, would be rape, as Lastwall defines it."

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"I see." Shit.

"None of them are married, legally. Slaves can't sign contracts. How they are seen is somewhat more complicated. Sometimes, anyway."

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"That...makes sense.

In nearly all of the ways that it is bad for a person to be raped, it is just as bad for them if they are also enslaved. More so in most cases, probably."

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"I am most concerned about what this means I'm meant to be enforcing legally. I can't - well. I can, I suppose, punish anyone who sleeps with a slave, if I write the Queen and determine that is truly her intent. If it is, of course, we'll do it. But -

Have you spoken with the children's archery instructor?"

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